1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the treatment of milk intended to be subjected to ultrafiltration for the manufacture of cheeses. The invention relates in particular to a new dairy raw material utilisable for the manufacture of cheeses. The invention finds particularly interesting application in the treatment of milk intended to be subjected to ultrafiltration to serve as a raw material for the manufacture of fresh cheeses, soft chesses, pressed chesses, of the Saint Paulin type of similar cheeses. The invention also relates to the cheeses so obtained.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Cheese making tradition teaches that there exists a narrow relationship between the size and form of the cheese on the one hand and the characteristics which define its texture on the other hand. Independently of the fat content, as well as the surface or internal flora, the texture of a cheese depends on the plasticity and the structure of its paste.
The plasticity and the cohesion of a paste are strictly connected to its dryness and its composition, in particular with its content of alkaline-earth elements--calcium and magnesium--, these characteristics varying from one type of cheese to another.
However if the calcium is a determining element of the plasticity, resulting through its slight variations in important changes in flexibility and elasticity of the paste, its existence gives rise, in the presence of lactic acid in sufficient amount, to calcium lactate, which is a producer of bitterness.
The reduction in the level of calcium lactate in a cheese is achieved, in traditional manufacture, by two different routes the selection of which is determined by the criteria of whether the paste must or must not be flexible:
when the paste must preserve a sufficient level of calcium, there is an obligation to remove a maximum of lactose--potential lactic acid--by extended ripening of the curded grain, by washing the latter or by both at once. when the paste must be further demineralised, the calcium becomes solubilised, as a result of the development of the acidity consequent upon lactic fermentation, and removed in the serum, so that the presence of lactose does not result in any drawback.